Page 11 of Out for Blood
Bram was there, leaning against the wall outside Jagger’s room. He’d been following me around all night, keeping a respectful distance while I visited Vigo and Jagger but making it clear he wasn’t leaving me alone anytime soon.
“He good?” Bram asked about Jagger.
The Hawks were still a sore subject and Bram had taken to using a kind of shorthand to discuss their condition in the hospital, like it was easier to pretend I was in love with someone else, some generic guy (or three) that he didn’t know.
We’d have to talk about it eventually, but now wasn’t the time.
“Hard to say. He’s pretty out of it.” I looked around. “Where’s Maeve?”
“Went home to feed Ray,” Bram said.
Ray was the stray dog Bram had rescued for Maeve back when he’d been on his apology tour for acting like a total jerk.
He did that a lot.
Acted like a jerk, that is. Not apologize. Although hewasgetting the tiniest bit better at that thanks to Maeve.
He ran a hand over his short dark hair. “You should get some rest. I could bring you back to your place and stay while you shower and sleep. Or you could stay in one of the guest rooms at the loft.”
I shook my head. “Not until I see Hawk.”
“He’s not allowed visitors.”
“Would you let that stop you if it was Maeve in the ICU?” I asked.
He hesitated, then swore under his breath. “Let’s go.”
7
CASSIE
I didn’t knowhow I was going to get in to see Hawk, but I knew I wasn’t leaving until I saw for myself that he was alive.
Until I let him know I was there.
The elevator was empty, but Bram and I didn’t talk on our way up to the ICU. There was too much to say, both of us grappling with our old dynamic: Bram as protective older brother, me as the little sister who was still a child.
I think we both knew none of that was going to work anymore.
I was almost relieved when the elevator door opened and we stepped out into the ICU. Somehow talking my way into seeing Hawk seemed less complicated than trying to sort things out with Bram.
The floor was hushed, the nurses speaking in low voices, machines beeping softly from the private rooms, their glass doors extra wide to accommodate specialized equipment.
“I don’t know which room he’s in,” I told Bram, trying to keep my voice down.
“I’ll take care of it.” He scanned the people in scrubs behind the nurses’ station and homed in on a guy in his thirties, hisbrown hair thin and beginning to recede from his hairline. “Let me do the talking.”
He stalked toward the nurses’ station.
I clocked the moment they spotted him, saw the familiar recoil, as if Bram were surrounded by some kind of palpable dark energy.
Most of them looked away, something people did a lot with Bram. I was convinced that was one of many reasons my brother had fallen in love with Maeve: she’d seen him from the start.
But the guy with the receding hairline couldn’t look away. Bram’s gaze had him in a death grip, and he stood there, terror written all over his face as Bram approached with me on his heels.
“Um… hey… Bram.” The guy cleared his throat, and one of the other nurses — a blond woman wearing scrubs with trees on them — stared at him in surprise, like she was shocked the guy could know someone like Bram.
“Hey,” Bram said. “Looking for a guy named Hawk.”
